Crossing paths
by Little-Firestar84
Summary: Contribution to the Mentalist Mini-bang 2012-13, crack!fic/parody: On one side, Patrick Jane, former carnie guy turned fake psychic turned CBI consultant; on the other one, Clint Barton, former carnie guy turned secret agent turned super-hero. Together, they fight crime… or maybe not.


**Author:**little_firestar  
**Word Count:** 2580+  
**Rating:** T  
**Summary:**Patrick Jane, former carnie guy turned fake psychic turned CBI consultant; Clint Barton, former carnie guy turned secret agent turned super-hero. Together, they fight crime… or maybe not.  
**Disclaimer:**Even if my father is called Bruno, not being a Heller, there's no doubt that I don't own the right to the Mentalist. Also: Clint Barton and Phil Coulson belong to Disney Enterprises.  
**Notes:** written for the 2012 minibang. Thanks to my beta, tromana, and my artist, branquignole. A warning: stay away if you aren't into crack!fic and parody...

It wasn't a good day.

Getting a case at five in the morning (especially after an evening out drinking in the vain hope of getting laid) was bad enough, but she could handle it. Then, she had to drive for hours, without coffee, and that only made things worse_. _Still, it was necessary and a sacrifice she was willing make like the good martyr she was.

What she couldn't handle was Jane's constant talking. Just because he was a chronic insomniac and was used to being up and ready at any given hour, it didn't mean that she was as well.

Besides, it was a case with political connections. Bertram had already told her, that if she and _the golden boy _couldn't solve it, they could kiss their CBI careers goodbye. And she really didn't feel like begging McDonalds for a job.

"Don't you find it amusing, Lisbon? It appears that every year, we happen to investigate a case connected to bio-weapons and engineered mass-destruction viruses. One could wonder where the world is going, and whether humanity is actually worth saving. Maybe we should simply let…."

She massaged the bridge of her nose, and stopped abruptly, turning to stare at the man. "_Shut up_!" she hissed. She had thought about screaming at him, but she already knew that there was no point. It would have just amused him instead. Shaking her head, she continued walking with a grinning Jane behind her. It was so much for good intentions. Maybe it was finally time for her to use her gun on him, just like she had promised so many times in the past…

"I still think it is quite funny. You could even say it's serendipity, but since I don't believe in such a thing…"

"Shut up," she repeated once again, but this time she was smiling a little. It wasn't like Jane was wrong, after all.

They had, indeed, taken another case connected to bio-weapons. The director of the company, named Future-Pharm, had called the Governor in the middle of the night, saying that the CBI had to investigate the death of one of his scientists, a certain Dr. Killian. Apparently, it seemed to be a case of industrial espionage.

Industrial espionage, a dead scientist, and a society specialized in, amongst the other things, bio-weapons, it was obvious that they didn't like it. At least, Lisbon didn't, Jane, with his own idea of amusement, was a whole other matter. However, she couldn't judge him for his tastes.

She just hoped that he wasn't going to do something stupid again_. _Like, claiming that a vial of some super-virus had been smashed, condemning them all to some kind of Resident Evil scenario. If he did, a punch on the nose wouldn't suffice this time. At least she still had her gun.

"Hey Cho, what do we got?"

Lisbon put on her best 'cop in charge' attitude as she walked towards her second in command in the corridor of the industry. Behind her followed her grinning consultant.

She didn't care about Jane; to hell with him. She didn't need to impress him. Who she did have to impress were her boss, Director Bertram and the Governor. And to impress them, she had to win over the lady that Cho was busy talking to.

"Boss, this is Maya Hansen; she worked with Dr. Killian…."

"Yes, and there's no need for you to come here! I told my boss, but he didn't listen to me!" the dark-haired brunette in her early forties told them, amusing Jane to no end. Of course, this annoyed Lisbon. A man was dead, the poor woman was probably in shock, she was going to a live PR scenario, and the bastard kept grinning like a maniac.

"Ma'am, please, the police need to rule it as a suicide. Let us do our job." Lisbon smiled politely, with an 'I'm sorry for your loss' kind of expression, putting an encouraging hand on the shoulder of the doctor. At the same time, though, she clenched her other hand into a fist. This woman was on the verge of hysterics, and Jane kept laughing. He didn't even have the decency of trying to show her some respect.

"You know, under normal circumstances, I'd beg you to let me go, seeing as a suicide is a waste of my uncanny abilities. But, I have to admit, your reaction, Dr. Hansen, intrigues me. Your boss is hiding something, and yet he wants for us to solve the case. You, my dear, are also hiding something, something that you don't want to go public. I wonder what it might be…"

"Jane!" she shouted, not bothering to hide her irritation. The man was walking a dangerous path, just one wrong word, and he could kiss goodbye his gorgeous looks. "Ma'am, I'm sorry for my _consultant's_ behavior but please, let me do my job. I need to see Dr. Killian's body in order to…"

"Yes, please, let her do her job. So we can tag along and do our own job in the meantime."

The new voice stopped them from moving furthermore into the argument, and four pairs of eyes turned in direction of who had just talked, and the breath died in Lisbon's throat. She had just spotted one of the most wonderful specimens of the male of the species in front of her. To hell with Patrick Jane; this one was even younger!

The guy was something between late thirties and early forties, with short, military style light brown hair and the most wonderful blue eyes she had ever seen. He was muscular and his whole demeanor screamed both 'dangerous, kinky bastard' and 'I'll always be there for you, babe'. That alone made of him the perfect main character of her erotic dreams.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I didn't get your name," she told him, playing with her hair like a flirting teenager, which annoyed Jane, but she didn't care. In fact, that made it all the better as he had done more than enough irritating her to last a lifetime.

"Ma'am, I'm agent Phil Coulson, the lead agent in this investigation," a man she hadn't even noticed before said, offering her his hand to shake. She kept her eyes on the other guy at all times, though. "And this is…."

"Clint Barton," two voices (with two very different intonations) echoed. To her surprise, one of the voices belonged to none other than to a very, very pissed off Patrick Jane.

"You know this guy?" Lisbon replied. She half considered throwing her arms around his neck and kissing Jane senseless. She had an opening with mysterious hot guy and all because of Jane!

"Yes and, Lisbon, you can do so much better than him, trust me!"

He crossed his arms, pouting. He did his best 'lost puppy' impression, hoping that she would get the hint. He was supposedly the 'so much better'. However, they couldn't do anything about all the lust-filled dreams of his because he was chasing a surprisingly jealous serial killer. That meant she had to stay single for the rest of her life and feed cats instead of their gorgeous children.

"Yeah, right, this beautiful woman for example, she likes you, because you're such a good person, right? You think I don't know you well enough, _Paddy_? As soon as I saw your name, I knew it! You're up to something, like always!"

"Hey, I didn't know we were coming here until four hours ago!"

"In general! You're always up to something _in general_!" Clint told him, angrily pointing his finger.

"Are you saying I'm smart, Clint?" the consultant grinned wickedly. Lisbon had to admit it was fuel for rather sexy dreams. She wasn't sure she'd be dreaming exclusively about the new guy, either. Maybe Clint could share her dreams with Jane? Or maybe, they could always participate in the fun together. Now _that_ was an interesting thought….

"No, I'm saying you are playing a long con at the expense of these cops, like you always did when we were kids!"

Cho, surprisingly, gasped a little, while Lisbon merely shrugged. It wasn't like she had never thought about that possibility. Actually, she had known it was highly likely. Jane was, after all, working with them so that they could lead him to Red John and then, he could kill him. It wasn't her fault the rest of the world hadn't figured out yet that getting the husband of the deceased to work on the case wasn't wise….

Despite being partly the truth, that seemed to make Jane see red. "I've worked with them for over ten years!" he paused, just to immaturely add, "and besides, you're just a stupid, childish brat who is still mad at me because of that trick with the arrows!"

And that made it. In an instant, the federal agent (or whatever Clint happened to be, Lisbon didn't know, or care at thus moment), jumped at the CBI consultant, and it was all a mass of muscular hands gripping gorgeous hair for a while. Jane complained like a kid while Clint grunted a lot. Lisbon was almost tempted to put herself between them; they were both gorgeous, after all, even if Jane was a pain in the ass. But while Cho looked at the scene with crossed arms and a slightly raised eyebrow, Coulson stopped her from moving, shaking his head. Lisbon was almost positive that the guy just wanted to keep her out of harm's way. How couldn't he get that she just wanted to join in the fun?

"Let me guess, they used to know each other?" she asked him, still focused on the scene. Now she had a certain idea why men found attractive women fighting hot. If it was anything like what she was witnessing right now…

"They worked for the same carnival at the same time. I know you would never guess, but they are the same age, ma'am," Coulson calmly told her, re-arranging his black tie like nothing was going on around him, except maybe a lecture or presentation or… something. She didn't really care; after all, he just looked like a young version of Tommy Lee Jones' character in Men in Black, and she didn't think much of him. "At SHIELD, we do a full background check on every new recruit."

"SHIELD?" she asked, looking quizzically at him, forgetting for a moment the two battling men. Which was a shame, because she was pretty sure she wasn't going to see Jane behaving with such masculinity again. Oh well, maybe she could ask Walter to drive by one of those days and try to get Jane all possessive over her. That would hopefully provide fuel for her dreams.

"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and…."

"SHE DOESN'T CARE, COULSON! NOBODY CARES WHAT THE HELL SHIELD MEANS!" Barton screamed, busy trying to take Jane's scalp. "I failed my number because of you, you idiot! Barry is still laughing at me because a certain someone had put glue on my arrows!"

"Well, it's not my fault your number was lame!"

"My number wasn't lame! And besides, I've never…." He stopped mild-sentence, looking for the right worlds. Apparently, the two had a similar track record, if Clint's silence was any indication. "Well, remind me how much time did you serve for those felonies in Kansas, huh? Right: you didn't! Because you pulled me into your mess! "

"I admit nothing!" Jane yelled back, obviously scared. Momently he turned to face her. Yes, she would happily spend a lot of time with this Clinton Barton guy and having a scared Jane was a bonus. Even if he was just scared that she was about to hear his dark secrets, and feared she would kick him out, lose contact with the Red John Investigation and any chance of bloody revenge. "And… and… AT LEAST I DIDN'T WEAR A PURPLE SKIRT AND A HEADBAND!"

"A headband and a skirt?" Lisbon wondered, pouting. It was just her luck; all the attractive men, especially the ones she liked, were either unavailable, billionaires with no intentions of settling down, gay or hell-bent on killing the serial killer responsible for the death of their daughter and wife. That meant she would still have to settle with her dreams. Getting frustrated wouldn't do her any good.

"IT WAS A PEPLUM. I ONLY USED IT FOR THE SHOW, YOU IDIOT, AND I MADE THE PURPLE LOOK ROCK!" Clint screamed, rolling Jane so that the consultant's back was pinned against the cold floor. Lisbon could tell that Clint had had many years of training and Jane had every right to look as scared as he did.

Jane quickly resorted to what Lisbon considered as his only means of escape.

"SHE DID IT!" Jane shouted, indicating Dr. Hansen with one hand and protecting his million-dollar worth nose with the other. "I could read the letter Killian left upside down while we were fighting each other!"

Clint stopped, and, still straddling Jane's lithe body, looked at his partner, with a '_What the hell, another bloody super-hero?'_expression. At the same time, Lisbon took possession of the incriminating letter, and read it out loud, keeping one eye on the men. Jane smirked as she read, clearly proud of himself.

_They know Extremis has been extracted from the vault. It's just a matter of time before the theft is discovered and interrogated. I won't make it through an interrogation. I know that I have lost something terrible. Knowing that it had to be done doesn't ease the burden. _

"And what exactly did she do, Jane? This is a supposed confession that a man was forced to write prior to killing himself, all because he had stolen something," she grunted, rolling her eyes. So much for a solved case!

"But that's it, Lisbon; Killian didn't steal it, at least, not by himself. You see that vault? It takes two keys to open it. One is around Dr. Hansen's neck, the other, I presume, belongs to the deceased. Ergo, they had to work together. My idea? I'd say that the government took back the money for this _Extremis_, so they stole it onto the black market to get an idea of what it was and what he could actually do. The government would have given them their money back so that they could work on an antidote, or another version of the virus, and everybody would be happy! Or maybe they would eventually sell the new antidote or virus on the black market and just live happily ever after with the money gained from some terrorist unit with a redundant name of some sort."

Lisbon turned to the woman, looking at her, like saying, _ma'am, something to say?_ Hansen just crossed her arms. She was smart enough to admit defeat. She had, after all, just built a new weapon of mass destruction. "Um, I would have used to new discoveries to get out of the arms race! Set up on my own. Specialize in medical technology. You knew, people die. Almost 100 people in car accidents every day, alone."

And while Cho went away with the doctor, only Coulson spoke, daring to break the silence. "The director will not be happy knowing he had wasted money to get us here and somebody else did the job…."

But Lisbon wasn't listening. She was too busy using her cellphone to record Jane and Barton fighting again.

Her day had turned suddenly so much better!


End file.
